after the trumpets fade
by wild wolf free17
Summary: collection of drabbles about the pilots, post EW; gen and slash
1. forgive me, father

**Title**: forgive me , father

**Disclaimer**: not my characters

**Warnings**: takes place after Endless Waltz

**Pairings**: none

**Rating**: PG

**Wordcount**: 255

**Point of view**: third

**Prompt**: Quatre, He keeps hoping the pilots can move beyond the war and what it did, but he fears the knife under his pillow will never be anywhere else...

* * *

Of them all, Quatre knows, he and Wufei have the greatest chance of moving on, blending in, letting go of the blood and the danger and... well, not the guilt, actually, but everything else that goes with it. Even if Wufei is a Preventor agent and therefore still a soldier, to some extent, he is fully recognized and sanctioned.

Heero has vanished, Trowa's about to, and Duo-well, no one really knows what Duo does, but soon enough, he'll probably go join Heero wherever Heero is.

Quatre was raised to be a businessman, not a warrior. But he still sleeps with a knife under his pillow and a gun beside his bed, he still catalogs every way in and out of a room, he still assesses the danger potential of everyone _in_ the room, and he still thinks about how satisfying it would be to kill whoever is annoying him at the time.

Of them all, he and Wufei should've had it the easiest settling into the peace their lost innocence wrought. But now Trowa and Duo have vanished too, probably to wherever Heero is, and Wufei told him yesterday that Une wants them found immediately before they're a danger to the world.

Quatre has a gun and a knife and his hands. He's tired of faking normal because he's _not_ normal, he piloted Sandrock, he mastered ZERO, and Wufei will meet him tomorrow so that they can go find their brothers and maybe _finally_ have the peace they nearly died to achieve.


	2. from thy pathless wilds

**Title**: from thy pathless wilds

**Disclaimer**: not my characters; title from Holmes

**Warnings**: future!fic

**Pairings**: Trowa/Quatre

**Rating**: PG

**Wordcount**: 165

**Point of view**: third

**Prompt**: Quatre Winner/Trowa Barton, Making it work after the war

* * *

It is different in peace. No longer does fear and anxiety accompany every interaction; no longer does Quatre wait for the death-blow to fall. Everything is new.

Quatre returns to his family and Trowa goes to the circus and months pass. Quatre keeps up with all of his fellow pilots, helping where he can.

Months pass and all of them send him their gundams save Wufei. Another war erupts only to be put down, and soon there are no more gundams.

Seeing Trowa face to face... oh, Quatre longs for him. But Trowa is not for boardrooms or close scrutiny. And though that is the world Quatre has been groomed for all his life… in all honesty, it is not his place. He is a warrior. He has more than enough sisters who want command, and he is happy to let them have it.

Trowa does not return to the circus. Instead, he begins to travel the world, and Quatre smiles at his side.


	3. oneway road

**Title**: one-way road

**Disclaimer**: not my characters, except the ones who are

**Warnings**: pre-series; AU

**Pairings**: none

**Rating**: PG  
**Wordcount**: 220

**Point** **of** **view**: third

**Prompt**: Gundam Wing, Duo, an alternate origin story

* * *

He found the kid on the street, picking pockets and about to move up the chain to hustling. He figured the kid would be dead before the end of the year.

His mother collected beautiful things; it's how she got him.

So when the kid—brown hair, purple-blue eyes—reached into his pocket, he grabbed the thin wrist and offered him a choice.

Only time would tell if the kid chose wisely or not.

o0o

Seven years later, riots tore the neighborhood apart. His mother was planetside, and he sent all the staff home, thinking they might survive if they weren't near the affluent.

"C'mon, kid," he said. "We have to get out of here."

They ran together, him and the kid with the smart-mouth even his mother couldn't tame.

o0o

He knew he wouldn't make it. Maybe the kid would.

So he ducked into an alley and told the kid to find Professor G, because Ma had said he might know how to fix things.

"Don't forget your lessons," he murmured, hands sliding away from the wound in his side. "You're our second chance, kid."

o0o

Theodora Maxwell watched in horror and pride as the Oz soldiers dragged the boy with the braid towards the base.

She learned later that his name was Duo Maxwell, and she knew he'd chosen wisely.


End file.
